Beverly author’s character gets Hallmark movie

Wednesday

It’s every author’s dream to envision his or her written masterpiece might one day be turned into a movie or television series.

For Beverly resident and Saugus native Dana Cameron, that dream is coming to fruition.

Early next month, Hallmark Movies & Mysteries will premiere a new movie based on the character of Emma Fielding, about whom Cameron has written a six-book series. Actress Courtney Thorne-Smith, of “Melrose Place” and “According to Jim” fame, will play the lead role.

While she hasn’t had a great deal of input in the movie, Cameron said she did have the chance to visit the set in Canada recently.

“I got to meet the cast. I got to meet the director,” she said. “It was amazing and the crew on the set, I can’t say enough about how hard they worked to make the site look like an archeological site … They really have worked hard to capture things that are most important to me.”

Cameron said she was very surprised when she learned Hallmark was interested in taking her book and turning it into a movie.

“It had been 10 years after the last book had come out, and so I was like, ‘OK, cool,’” she said. “I’ve had friends who have had series options. You go, you sign the contract, you get a check and then you forget about it because the chances of it being made are pretty small … And then, when they said, all of a sudden a few months later, ‘we’re going to make it,’ I was in a state of disbelief.”

Cameron said it wasn’t until she visited the set in British Colombia that it really sank in that the movie was happening.

“I hope people have as good a time watching the movie as people have had reading the books,” she said. “I’ve had a lot of lovely responses to the books.”

Cameron said there is a possibility that Hallmark will turn the rest of the series into movies, as well.

“Site Unseen: An Emma Fielding Mystery” is scheduled to premiere on the Hallmark Movies & Mysteries channel on Sunday, June 4, at 9 p.m.

“I’m really looking forward to it,” Cameron said. “I’m working on a viewing party. And, if things go well, I could be live tweeting during it.”

A life of writing

“It’s not where I started out,” said Cameron about her career as an author. “And it’s something I couldn’t do without my husband’s support … It’s fun because, obviously, I love reading, and being able to live in that world is an amazing privilege.”

Cameron, who was an archaeologist for a number of years, explained an experience when she was working on a project in Maine.

“My boss and I were out mapping a site,” she began. “And a guy came onto the site with a metal detector. And then he started to dig, which is illegal in Maine … and when my boss protested, he pulled a gun on us.”

Cameron said she told a friend about that incident, as well as several others that she had experienced during her time as an archaeologist.

“She’s like, ‘that doesn’t happen to normal people. You need to write this stuff down,’” Cameron said. “And I’ve always loved mysteries … So, I started writing. And it became an obsession.”

The first Emma Fielding book came out in 2002. And her agent asked her to turn it into a series.

“From there, I went on to write three books and then three more books,” she said. “There’s six in the series.”

Cameron has also written three urban mystery novels, as well as several short stories.

The character of Emma Fielding is loosely based on Cameron.

“She was very much a young academic,” Cameron explained. “I took experiences that I’ve had in the field and made them more exciting and threw in the elements of mystery … I realized very quickly that archaeologists and detectives do the same thing. They’re recreating something that happened in the past.”

Writing the character has also changed Cameron’s lifestyle. With Emma being an avid jogger and quite active, Cameron said she started walking more and took some Krav Maga classes.

“We have evolved together in a way I had never expected,” Cameron admits.

And, with the potential for the movie to bring renewed interest to her books, Cameron might not be done with Emma's character just yet.

"You never say never," she said. "But it comes down to the notion that, if they decide to reprint the books, the publisher may want me to write more books, so it's a possibility."

About “Site Unseen: An Emma Fielding Mystery”

Brilliant, dedicated and driven, archaeologist Emma Fielding is trying to unearth evidence of a 17th century coastal Maine settlement that predates Jamestown, one of the most significant archaeological finds in years. But the dead body that accompanies it has embroiled Emma and her students in a different kind of exploration.